Broken Boy
by ChortlesOfDoom
Summary: Castiel discovers his wings are damaged when he regains his limited grace; Dean helps him out. Short one-shot.


Between the fall and regaining his grace, Castiel's wings were damaged. That spell was a brutal one, not without its own litany of side effects, and even without using all of him, enough was taken to leave awful injuries. The brothers couldn't see them; they were much deeper than that. Little things like cuts and bruises, those were easy to deal with. But the wings—oh, those were bad. The muscles were atrophied and the feathers were nearly all missing, plucked away like a turkey's. To Castiel, who was still cut off from Heaven and hadn't been able to fly properly in the longest, that part didn't matter much; what bothered him so immensely was the pain.

Days passed alone in the bunker, where he would claim research each time Sam and Dean asked for help with a job and then promptly vanish into his room. There he'd materialize his wings and spend hours inspecting them like a wounded animal, every scrape and burn and even areas where the bones were visible. The pain was liquid fire under his skin, constant and unrelenting agony. A few times he forced himself to fall asleep, just to find some peace. Mostly, though, he just cried, cried until it felt a little less like hell itself.

Now again—that was when he was alone. Moments like those, the bunker was either empty or he'd slipped into invisibility. No one was ever the wiser. But then sometimes a little grunt would escape him, or he'd fail to hold back a wince between sentences. Sometimes the pain would flare, and he'd stumble on his own feet, practically knocked to his knees. On such days the Winchesters would ask again and again—"Cas, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Can we help?"

And all he'd answer was a flat "I'm fine."

Dean never bought this for a second; in fact, he was the first of the two to take notice of the angel's behaviour. The way he scratched at the thin air behind him, how he would sometimes slouch for no clear reason—Castiel vehemently insisting there was nothing, maybe just a little _too_ vehemently. So Dean confronted him, prodded with a thousand questions until he finally caved.

"My wings," was all he said, hands buried deep in his coat pockets.

"Your wings? Cas, what about them?

"They're—they're hurt."

"Hurt how?"

Cas frowned a little, glanced at the invisible growths on his back. "Metatron used a lot of grace for that spell. It damaged me."

The ragged shadows on the wall were all Dean could see, and he wondered for a moment what he could possibly do to help when the injuries weren't even visible to him. Then he remembered a special pair of glasses he owned, non-prescriptions scorched by holy fire that allowed him to see hellhounds—and maybe even Castiel's wings.

Well, Dean was right. The very instant he slid the specs on, he caught sight of the angel's oil-black wings, and his mouth fell open. They were thin and tattered and sagged so much they nearly touched the floor, and he gave a sharp cringe each time he glimpsed a wound. The hunter's life had certainly showed Dean worse, much worse than what Cas bore—but seeing someone so close to him like that, it was painful.

Dean's priorities quickly shifted to aiding him, changing his bandages twice a day and supplying him with near-industrial quantities of painkillers. Cas didn't appreciate the vulnerability and he certainly didn't appreciate the kind of proximity cleaning his wounds called for; there wasn't a single instance where he didn't immediately light up like a tomato at Dean's touch. That wasn't a bad thing—hell, it was wonderful. Just a little awkward at times.

Weeks passed and the last of his old feathers finally fell out, and by then he had dozens of shiny new ones growing in. Traces of his injuries still existed in the form of scars and bald spots, but the pain was gone, and save for the fact he couldn't fly—well, he couldn't really do that anyway—no one would ever be able to tell anything had occurred.

Dean tossed the last of the dressings in the trash and took a long look at Castiel's wings before saying, "So Cas, you good?"

He nodded. "Thank you, Dean."

Cas was still very much a broken man, inside and out, but moments like these, things never seemed quite as bad. Dean seized him in a long, tight hug and he felt his wings flutter a little, and when he finally let go, Cas smiled.

Maybe he wasn't that broken after all.


End file.
